| Methods |
Design: six group parallel trial
Purpose: examine the effect of various techniques for reducing tension |
| Participants |
Patients: media recruited out‐patients who regularly experienced feelings of tension they wanted to reduce
Baseline comparability: yes |
| Interventions |
Placebo: sessions where relaxation was enhanced by listening to soft music
Untreated: no sessions
Experimental: sessions with
‐visual and auditory feedback on the tension in the frontalis muscle
‐visual and auditory feedback on the finger temperature
‐combination of frontalis and temperature feedback procedures
‐relaxation enhanced by listening to a autogenic relaxation tape (Co‐intervention: NS) |
| Outcomes |
Tension rating scale
EMG
Finger temperature
Frequency of problems |
| Notes |
Relevant outcome data not accessible: data lost (personal communication Banner CN) |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Adequate sequence generation? |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Allocation concealment? |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Blinding?
Treatment provider |
High risk |
Not described as double‐blind (placebo/active) |
| Blinding?
Outcome assessor |
Unclear risk |
Not relevant as patient reported outcome |
| Incomplete outcome data addressed?
All outcomes |
Low risk |
Drop‐out < 15% |
| Free of selective reporting? |
High risk |
Relevant outcome data not accessible: data lost (personal communication Banner CN) |
| Free of other bias? |
Low risk |
|
| Trial size > 49? |
High risk |
N = 19 |
| Clearly concealed allocation + trial size > 49 + drop‐out max 15% |
High risk |
Trial size < 49 |
